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Wednesday, April 9, 2014

WASHINGTON (AP) –
The U.S. will keep its current force of 450 land-based nuclear missiles
but remove 50 from their launch silos as part of a plan to bring the
U.S. into compliance with a 2011 U.S.-Russia arms control treaty, the
Pentagon said Tuesday.

The resulting launch-ready total of 400 Minuteman 3 intercontinental
ballistic missiles would be the lowest deployed ICBM total since the
early 1960s.

The decisions come after a strong push by members of Congress from
the states that host missile bases – North Dakota, Wyoming and Montana –
to not eliminate any of the silos from which the missiles would be
launched. Fifty silos will be kept in “warm” status – empty of missiles
but capable of returning to active use.

Sen. John Tester, a Montana Democrat, called the Pentagon’s
announcement “a big win for our nation’s security and for Malmstrom Air
Force Base,” home of the 341st Missile Wing with 150 Minuteman 3
missiles.

“ICBMs are the most cost-effective nuclear deterrent, and keeping
silos warm is a smart decision and the kind of common sense Montanans
expect from their leaders,” Tester said.

The decision to put 50 missiles in storage but not eliminate any of
their launch silos is a departure from the practice followed throughout
the 50-plus year history of intercontinental ballistic missiles. A
senior defense official who briefed reporters on the plan and its
rationale said the Pentagon had never before structured its ICBM force
with a substantial number of missiles in standby status. The official
spoke under Pentagon ground rules that did not permit her name to be
used.

Hans Kristensen, an arms control expert at the Federation of American
Scientists, called the administration’s announcement disappointing as
an apparent shift away from ICBM force reductions.

“This decision appears to have more to do with the administration
surrendering to the ICBM caucus (in Congress) than with strategic
considerations about national security,” he said in an email exchange.

The Pentagon said it will cost $19.3 million over five years to keep
the 50 launch silos and missiles in standby status. The 50 missiles will
be stored at their base or, in some cases, sent to a depot for repairs
or maintenance.

Keeping all 450 silos meant the Pentagon had to make steeper
reductions in the Navy’s sea-based nuclear force in order to comply with
the New START, or Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, by 2018. The Navy
will reduce the number of deployed and non-deployed submarine-launched
ballistic nuclear missiles to 280 from the current 336.

The Navy has 14 Ohio-class submarines armed with missiles but only 12
will count as deployed because two will be undergoing long-term
maintenance at a given time during the 10-year life of the New START
treaty. The Navy is embarking on a multibillion-dollar program to build a
replacement for the current fleet.

The other “leg” of the U.S. nuclear force, the Air Force strategic
bombers, will be trimmed from the current deployed total of 93 to 60,
with an additional six available in a non-deployed status. The 60 will
comprise 19 B-2 stealth bombers and 41 B-52H Stratofortress heavy
bombers.

Thus the administration will remain within the New START limit of 700
deployed strategic nuclear weapons with 400 ICBMs, 240 sub-launched
missiles and 60 bombers. Russia already is well below the 700-deployed
weapon limit; at the most recent reporting period, last October, Russia
had 473; the U.S. had 809.

The 400 deployed ICBMs would be the lowest total since 1962,
according to a history of the force written by Kristensen of the
Federation of American Scientists. He says the U.S. had 203 deployed
ICBMs in 1962, with the force expanding rapidly to 597 the following
year and topping 1,000 in 1966. It has been between 550 and 450 since
1991.

The Obama administration spent months figuring out how to apportion
the reductions required to comply with the New START treaty. In the
meantime, the ICBM force came under heavy scrutiny for a variety of
problems, including low morale, leadership failures and investigations
over exam-cheating and drug use among launch officers.

Some question the value of retaining ICBMs, although President Barack
Obama has committed to keeping them as part of the nuclear “triad” of
forces that can be launched from land, sea and air. In addition to the
450 ICBM silos currently in use, the Air Force has four at Vandenberg
Air Force Base, Calif., used only for test launches. They will remain.

The Pentagon said Tuesday it probably will cost about $300 million to
implement all the announced changes required to comply with New START
by 2018. About two-thirds of the cost will be for altering some of the
missile tubes aboard Navy submarines so they can no longer launch
ballistic missiles.

The nuclear sub fleet is far more costly to operate than either the
land-based missiles or the bombers, but its strategic advantage is the
relative invulnerability of the submarines while at sea, and thus their
ability to survive a first strike.

The New START treaty also requires both Russia and the U.S. to reduce
to 1,550 the number of nuclear warheads associated with the deployed
missiles and bombers. The Pentagon has not spelled out how it will do
that, but analysts have said they believe the breakdown will be: 1,090
warheads aboard subs, 400 on land-based missiles and the 60 bombers
counting as one warhead each.

Obama announced last summer that the U.S. would be ready to reduce
its total warheads by another one-third, to about 1,100, in a new round
of negotiations with Russia. But there is scant chance of that happening
anytime soon, especially with the crisis over Russian intervention in
Ukraine.

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